How Did I Get These Scars?
by Lady Lisette
Summary: A story about Cad Bane's childhood that explains what happened to him to make him become the cold, calculating killer we all know him as. He wasn't always this way. Rated T for domestic violence and abuse. A prelude to "Space Bound".
1. Chapter 1

"Cad!" the young Duros woman screamed. "Cad, don't look! Stay in your room, baby!"

The tall, dark figure that stood larger than life with the belt in his hand, whipped it across the woman's face. Her pale green blood sprayed the dirt wall.

"I said shut up, you stupid woman!" her husband shouted.

The woman's face was full of her own blood. She clutched the 4-month old infant in her womb, as her eyes looked toward her son on the other end of the room. He was hugging his scabbed knees, trying not to cry, staring terrified up at the man he was forced to call his 'Father'. This brute was anything but. She never should have given herself to him, but it was much too late now. She had been so foolish. How could this man be the father of her son? Her beautiful son whom she loved so much.

"Cad, baby," she cried out to her son again, choking on her own blood.

The 7-year old boy flinched and discovered his back was pinned up against the wall. Father was hitting Mother again, hurting her, making her bleed, making her cry. He hated to hear his mother cry. Why wouldn't Father stop? Surely Father would stop hurting her _now_—didn't Father love Mother too?

"When I'm finished with you, the little runt's next! The more you talk, the more he gets it!" Father shouted.

The little boy found himself beginning to cry, no matter how much he had tried to hold back the sobs. He could already feel that horrible belt lashing his face.

His mother held back another scream. She had to be strong, for her son. The belt cut open her stomach. The infant inside her was bleeding, dying; she felt it. One last time, she looked up and saw her son—he was the spitting image of his father, with dark-blue skin and furious crimson eyes. She felt her strength giving out as the baby inside her died.

_No,_ she pleaded. As the belt whipped at her pale, thin legs, she thought of her son. Her only son. The only joy she had ever had in life—the only gift she had been given. _Be strong, my son. Don't be afraid of your father; he can't control you. Don't let him like I did. Be strong, Cad._

She sucked in her last breath.

* * *

><p>Four years ago—and Cad still couldn't erase the memory of watching his mother die right in front of him. Father had said you were worthless, you were nothing. Then when he was 10 years old, the dark strangers took him away to the black, intense, and filthy place they called Coruscant. They had said he would be living in "a boys' home" from now on, "where they would take care of him and teach him how to protect himself". He had never wanted to come here; he wanted to go home. Sometimes his mother would put his hand on her womb, and he would feel his little brother kicking inside there. It had taught young Cad two important things: 1) women have wonderful, invisible things inside them, and 2) new life is beautiful. But now, he was beginning to hate life.<p>

"Stupid runt!" the headmaster hollered. He grabbed the young Duros by the front of his shirt and yanked him up. "What do you think you were doing, you stupid thing? What's the matter with you?"

Even now, Cad could still feel his father's cold, bloody belt, that constant symbol of worthlessness, power, and death. He knew he still carried the scars on his face and back—he didn't know those scars would stay there for the rest of his life.

"S-sir," Cad stammered, trying to find his voice, "it wasn't my fault. They said th-they were going to beat me up. They were gonna kill me if I didn't—didn't…"

"If what? C'mon, enough with the stammering! I'm sick of it!"

"If they couldn't have my, my…"

"Don't test me, little rat," the headmaster snarled.

"If they couldn't have my ten credits," he said.

The headmaster loosened his grip a little, but not much.

"So, you gavethem your credits?" he asked, almost incredulously.

"No, they took it. They were g-gonna kill me."

At that, the headmaster, as if disgusted, threw the Duros to the black floor.

"Listen here, _peedunkey_," he hissed, pointing his finger at Cad, "they didn't take your cash; you _gave _it to them. You never give what's rightfully yours to someone else. Boil it down to this, and you'll se that all that matters in life is your credits. Credits can't get sick and die; they never betray you. They're all you need to survive out there on your own, and by learning to fight, you can protect them. When you figure that you, you stupid son of a whore, you won't have to worry about those bullies anymore. Understand?"

At that final insult, something ignited in Cad. He had felt it four years ago, as he listened to his mother's painful cries for the last time. Something in him had wanted to wring his own father's neck; now he wanted to do the same to the headmaster. In a sudden fit of rage, he jumped to his feet and punched the headmaster in the nose, then kicked him in the stomach.

The headmaster, not expecting the attack, tumbled to the floor, as the young Duros shouted with fury boiling in his bright crimson eyes,

"My mother was _not _a whore!"

The headmaster's advice, however, was the best advice anyone ever gave to him.


	2. Chapter 2

**After a lot of self-debating, I finally decided to expand a bit on this story - the one that kicked off my current project "Space Bound". The events are a bit out of order so I hope it isn't too confusing. If so, use the first chapter as reference. Anyway, enjoy.**

* * *

><p>Seven-year old Cad closed the door behind him as he walked into the small mud house. There were just four rooms—a kitchen and eating place, a storage room, the bedroom his parents shared, and his own room. He set one of his two parcels on the table and kept carrying the other. From his parents' room, he heard hushed, muffled sobbing. It was a bad sound and he hated hearing it.<p>

It's seventeen-hundred hours, young Cad thought. His father is getting off work and he's going to the nearest cantina to start drinking. He drinks a lot so he will be gone a while. About two more hours of peace and quiet, of solace and safety.

The door to his parents' room was wide open. Cad stepped in and cast a shadow on the hunched-over figure leaning on the edge of the bed, crying into her pillow. That was when he saw a cut that started on the edge of her right eye and went all the way down to the front of her mouth. Green blood glistened under the light.

"Mama..."

She was startled when she heard him. He had adapted so well to the hostile presence of his father that he could sneak around the house without so much as a peep.

"Cad. Cad, you're home." Quickly, she dabbed at the mess of water and blood on her face. "Baby, you have to let me know when you're going out late—"

"Mama, your _face_." Cad sat down next to his mother, his red eyes wide as he stared at the horrible gash. He began calculating in his mind as to what object his father had used to make such a cut—yes, he was certain Father was to blame, all right.

"It's nothing, baby." She avoided his gaze and looked down at the parcel. "What did you get?"

"I got this. For you and me to share." Cad pulled out three bacta strips and a big handful of ripe, orange berries. He thought she would be happy because he had brought some things home, but she wasn't smiling. He began placing one of the strips on his mother's face.

"No, Cad, you can't steal."

"I didn't steal it. I just took it when they stopped looking at it."

"That's called _stealing_. You can't do that. You wanna get caught and sent to a boys' home?" But the edge in her voice was numbed down as soon as he finished putting the bacta strip over the cut. She sighed in what was a mixture of exhaustion and relief. Cad took two berries and held them up to her mouth, and although she didn't feel like it she ate them. The sweet juice felt strange on her dry throat and hollowed stomach.

The last time she must have made a real meal for her and her son was before her husband starting cashing in his paychecks for extra drink and the occasional ten minutes with a female Zeltron half his age. That was several months or so ago. Since then, it had been this. Letting Cad go out to rob and steal like a street urchin. That was what she got for letting a man take her over with his wit and charm before she realized what he really was—a ravaging monster.

Sometimes she couldn't help but wonder if Cad ever stole more than the usual loaf of bread or slab of uncooked meat. Did he ever take playing cards? Cigarettes? Gambling games with the other younglings? Maybe even toy weapons.

"You feel better, Mama?" His voice pulled her out of her thoughts. She turned to him and forced herself to smile, feeding him a few berries the same way he did to her.

"Doctor Cad, I have never felt any better," she sing-sang.

But he didn't smile back. His eyes seemed almost hollow. Starving. Confused.

"Why did he do it," he whispered fiercely.

"Cad—listen—your father does a lot of things he doesn't mean to do. He didn't want to, he just—did it. He'd take it back if he could. That makes sense, doesn't it?"

Cad nodded, but deep in his heart he knew it wasn't true. Father meant it every single time. Father had told him so.

"Do I have to stop stealing, now?" he asked. He thought of something he had stolen a while back. It was special because not even his mother knew he had stolen it, so it was like a secret. One day old Plono's weapon shop had a sale going on outside, and he just took it without thinking. Now it sat under his bed collecting dust. I bet you're too afraid to use me, it said. Not even the big kids use me, it said.

It was a small hand-held blaster.

"Cad, it's okay." His mother put a hand across his chest and leaned her back against the wall, her son half-sitting in her lap as she caressed the bruises that went up his arms. "When I get better and I'm not sick, I'll find work again. You won't have to steal anymore. You can go back to school with the other younglings."

_Just be strong until then, Cad. Please. Just be strong._

Both of them jumped when the front door hissed open, and heavy, drunken footsteps broke the solace and the safety. The sound was heard of a large belt buckle dragging against the dirt floor.

Father was home early.


	3. Chapter 3

Cad coughed violently. A fever had hit his gaunt, frail body, and sweat flowed down his forehead and neck. He had had nothing to eat in two weeks. Now he could hardly stand up. He sat on the step just outside the front door of the house, clutching his small hand-held blaster. He didn't dare go inside.

Inside lay the corpse of his mother, cold and rotting and blanketed with flies. Every time he had tried to take her outside to let her be buried, his father in his drunken state had stopped him with severe punishment. The worst had been a blow from his father's belt that struck him across his left eye—for a day or two, he had been blinded from it. And he was forced to look on at his dead mother, or what was left of her.

And Father is always out drinking and fucking so why would he care about it, anyway? He doesn't know what dead Mother looks like. What it smells like.

Could he stand to smell it anymore? The stench the seven-year old Duros knew was that of his mother and unborn brother slowly decaying. The smell of death filling that house. How could he take it? How could he go back in there?

"I'm going out," Father had said. "Don't come looking for me," he had said. "If you're not here when I get back, I swear I'll string you up on a goddamn meat hook and whip you to shreds."

_I'm worthless. I'm nothing._

Eighteen hundred hours. Father will come any minute.

Cad didn't dare close his eyes. Unless he kept them open, he saw his father hacking his mother to death as she screamed at him to stay in his room. Why did she tell him not to look?

He now knew why.

When Cad finally saw his father walking up the black ashen path to their house, he looked different. Like he wasn't drunk.

"Cad? That you, boy?" he hollered from a ways away. He came closer.

_I'm worthless. I'm nothing._

Cad slowly folded his index finger over the trigger of the blaster, gnawing on his lower lip. He had promised himself he wouldn't cry, but he could already feel the hot stings. It hurt so bad. Why did that hurt the most?

"Cad?" Father was standing close. Mama had said to him often that he was the spitting image of his father. A pair of bright crimson eyes stared down at him. His father wiped foam from the corners of his mouth and rubbed at the creases on his forehead.

"Hey, Cad," his father repeated, "L-listen up. We need to talk." There was a very long pause. Switching of weight from one foot to the other. Cad smelled strong liquor and bodily waste. "I—I need to say something. To you. Aboutchyer mother. And me. What I did. What I did by _accident_. I mean, saying I'm sorry would be..."

Young Cad forced himself to stand up, the blaster in his hand. He could never understand what he was feeling at that moment.

"What...hey. What the hell you got there, boy...?"

_Forgive me, Mama. Please forgive me._

The next thing he heard was his father's scream of agony cut off by a loud thud.

_Kill number one._

Others later arrived to find a dead man and a boy with his face in his hands, squeezing out the sobs silently.

* * *

><p>"He will serve a three-year sentence in the local juvenile detention center. After that, he will be old enough to be sent to the nearest home for delinquents on the Coruscant system. That is all," the black-dressed stranger said from the front of the room. It was a dark room. They said it was the House of Justice. A loud bang followed these words.<p>

"Anything else?" the even-taller stranger next to him asked. A female with dark-green skin with her hand on his shoulder.

Cad didn't dare look up at any of them. He could still feel his father's cold belt against his shoulders. He could still hear his mother telling him not to look, to go back to his room—why didn't he listen to her? Why had his face been full of her blood? Why did the flies have to eat her?

_I hate you, _he thought to no one inparticular.

To the seven-year old, he could only hold on to one lone thought that actually made sense.

"I shot my daddy," he sang to her, rattling his stun cuffs to form a drum beat. "And I _liked _it. I shot my daddy, and I _liked _it. I shot my daddy..."

"Get him out of here," the black-dressed stranger boomed.

Alone in a small cell in the juvenile detention center, where scores of far-older boys and some girls were smoking cigarettes and yelling the worst of vulgarities at each other, Cad had to promise it to himself again and again and again.

Don't cry. Don't cry.

"And I _liked _it."


	4. Chapter 4

**Warning: this chapter gets a bit gruesome.**

* * *

><p>"Hey, <em>peedunkey<em>," the kid yelled at him, two of his friends behind him. They were all scrawny Human boys his senior by a couple years. "Hey, _peedunkey_, hand over your credits or I bash your brains in."

Ten-year old Cad stared at the floor, trying not to tremble and reminding himself what the headmaster had said.

"Hey, you listening to me?" The leader of the three who had spoken up first shoved him hard.

Cad backed up. He felt something boil in his gut as soon as the kid laid a hand on him. There was a hot sting in his eyes. Cad knew that feeling. It was like sitting on the front step waiting for Father to come home, his blaster in his lap.

They were _his _credits, weren't they? Why the hell should someone else get an extra meal or round of pazaak instead of him?

Sort of like the food he used to steal years ago. Something you got to fight for with your life. Something you have to hold onto as soon as you have it. The boiling in his gut felt as if it would spill over as soon as that occurred to him.

"Don'tchyu touch me."

"_What_? Can't you hear, rat." The three Humans mockingly leaned in closer.

"Don'tchyu _touch me_," Cad repeated, breaking past the choke in his throat.

In response, the leader grabbed the his shirt and gave him a yank.

"Yeah, and what are you gonna do about it? Now gimme your—"

Cad's knuckles sailed across the kid's face, hitting him square on the eye. He punched again and the kid let go of his shirt. His friends gaped. Red blood trickled out of his mouth. Cad hesitated at the sight of blood, blood that he had shed, but the hot stings weren't stopping.

_Don't cry._

"Don'tchyu _touch me_!" As Cad rose to his full height and smacked him in the face again and again, he realized much to his delight that he was actually bigger than all three of them. All along he had been able to hit back. So what had stopped him? What had finally broken his dam?

By then, the kid's two friends were running back down the hall screaming for the headmaster. Cad backed him up against a wall, breaking his nose, knocking out his teeth, sending punches to his lower abdomen. He couldn't control his own hands by that time. Then the kid fell down and Cad knelt on top of him. For good measure, he spat in the kid's face.

"You know what makes me sick?" Cad shouted as he grabbed his victim by the throat and began to squeeze. "You wanna know what really makes me sick?"

The young Human begged for him to stop until he could no longer speak. Cad's grip on his throat tightened and tightened. Bubbly blood spilled from the Human's nose and mouth and made a mess on the floor. It was disgusting to look at. Cad didn't even notice how the kid's face was beginning to turn a strange purple hue.

He only did when an adult grabbed him from behind and pulled him off, his arms coiled over Cad's. Cad kicked and thrashed, but it did no good.

When Cad had been dragged back to the headmaster's quarters, he was let go and tossed around to face him.

"You know what you just did?" the headmaster yelled. "You were no more than ten seconds from choking that boy to death!"

Suddenly the hot sting had passed, and Cad was staring at the floor all over again.

"S-sorry, I was just mad. Sir, I was j-just doing what you told me, I thought..."

"Shut up. Just shut up," he snapped. "Now look at me."

Cad made himself do it, trembling from head to foot.

"Listen, kid—whatever led you to do that—find out what _that_ is. Name it, label it, and put it in a box."

"Lock it and throw away the key," Cad finished, but received a small slap on the side of his head.

"_Don't _interrupt me. Now where was I? You label it, put it in a box, and you _keep _it. You hold on to it. Cradle it. Take care of it. You'll know when to pull it out and make good use of it. At least you're smart enough to know that. You got something that's gonna take you off the bottom of the food chain that's too risky to lose. Besides...it stopped those little _sleemo's _from picking on you, didn't it?"

Cad nodded.

"Guess it did. Hope it did."

"Oh, it did all right. That kid ain't comin' out of the hospital for a while. You made a wreck of his face, cracked two ribs, and he'll be pissing blood for a week."

Cad realized what had broken his dam at last. He had decided that he wasn't going to be anybody's victim anymore. If he didn't want to bleed, he'd have to start shedding blood. All he needed to do was hold on to his credits like one held on to life. And do whatever it took to be the next one in line for more of them.

Never would he go back to the old days of constant starvation from the hunger and terrifying powerlessness under his father.

That time had passed.

* * *

><p><em>Nightmares<em>

_...  
><em>

"_Mama_...!" the seven-year old boy screamed through his dry, choked throat. Wet sobs shook his body as he stared, horrified, at the ghastly sight in front him.

His mother's blood covered the dirt floor. He was sitting in a puddle of it. Her legs and back had turned to yogurt. Half of her face hung from her skull, clinging by strands of muscle. But what he would never forget was the spot in her shoulder where the belt had hit so hard it was stuck deep in a gouge and wouldn't come out.

Cad reached out to touch what remained of her face. Mama was hurt. She needed help. She wasn't even breathing. Why couldn't she hear him? Why didn't she _say_ anything?

"No _touchie_." A strong calloused hand grabbed Cad by the arm and tossed him backwards, accidentally snapping his wrist. Cad screamed in pain as he landed on his side. He smelled a mixture of whiskey, brandy, and Zeltron semen on his father's breath. "Stupid kid, she's _dead_. Can't you see 'dat, stupid? Not even late...saying goodbye, no coming back. Ain' tha' a tragedy for us..."

Cad turned and vomited up whatever was still in his stomach. He let out a loud cry of shock and terror and grief that he was far too young to understand. His only reality was the fierce crimson eyes of his drunken father glaring down at him, and the fact that his back was getting soaked in his mother's blood.

"Daddy..._Daddy_..." he could hardly speak, his throat was so tight.

"She called me a no-good, goddamn _sleemo_. Tha's wha' she called me. Your mothe' was a bitch. _She _was the no-good, the bitch. Stupid woman, she..."" His father's hand swooped down and ripped the belt out of her shoulder.

"D-on't hurt me, please don't hurt me..."

"Now—lissen up, I'm only sayin' it _once_. You gonna tell anyone about this li'l mess no-good bitch made?"

Still sobbing loudly, Cad shook his head feverishly as he clutched his broken wrist.

"You gonna call the cops on me? Tell a livin' soul?"

"No...I _won't_!"

Why wasn't Mama waking up? She couldn't be...


	5. Chapter 5

_Eight years later..._

"Hey! Wake up. Get out here! Headmaster wants you in his quarters _stat_!" someone shouted from behind his closed door.

Cad jumped and sat up straight. He was in a cold sweat. His eyes stung. Trembling, he dragged his legs over the side of the bunk and pressed his fingers against his forehead to erase the images.

He had had the nightmare again. The nightmare of trying to rescue his mother and his brother but never quite reaching them because he was wading waist-deep in blood. His father would turn on him, a burning hole through his forehead, and tell him he was going to string him up on a meat hook. Cad always woke up begging his father to stop.

When would any of it stop?

Cad pinched his arm a few times, still fighting off the shakes.

"All right, I'm coming, dammit," he yelled half-heartedly, and dropped his feet to the floor. In the darkness of the room, he fumbled around for something to wear. Ever since he had been given a room to himself in the home—however cramped and closet-like, still a room—he had fallen into a habit of going to bed stark naked. After all, it was the first time in over ten years he was able to sleep alone. He eventually found a pair of suspenders and his boots, deciding that should be enough.

In less than five minutes, Cad was half-dressed, downstairs, and back at the headmaster's quarters. It was four-hundred hours, barely morning, so the place was still quiet and barren. The door was opened and Cad was greeted by his headmaster. Over the years he had been living at the home, the features on the headmaster's Human face had slowly but surely decayed to his death-stick addiction, like his skin was melting by the millimeters.

"Asked to see me?" Cad muttered.

Without a word, the headmaster led him inside and shut—locked—the door behind them. Cad saw that a group of six adults were sitting around the headmaster's front desk. A couple Weequays, a Rodian, two Humans, and a Zabrak. But there was no doubt that they were professionals of some sort by the way they were dressed. Suddenly Cad wished he had put on a shirt after all.

"We want to talk to him, _alone_," the male Zabrak said in a low voice.

The headmaster shot them a dark, perplexed look, but walked out of the room. Cad, not knowing what else to do, took a chair and sat down across from the group.

"What do you go by, kid?" one of the Humans asked.

"My name is Cad Bane," he said flatly.

"Let me ask you, something, Bane, how long have you been here?" It was the first time someone had ever addressed him by his surname. Made him feel more grown-up.

"Twelve years, one month, two weeks, and four days," he said without hesitation.

Two or three glanced at each other, but no one batted an eye.

"How'd you like to get out of here?" one said.

"What?" Cad felt his heart stop. But years of living here had taught him how not to show such a thing on his face.

"How'd you like to make your own living? How'd you like to start a profession of your own, maybe even a whole career?"

"So what are you sayin'?"

"Kid, we're giving you an open door outta here," one of the Weequays chimed in. "We've known about this home for a long time. We recently noticed you. You got some real skills, Bane, skills you could use."

"Yeah? Skills?"

The other Weequay spoke next.

"I've seen you're a good shot with a blaster. You're fast, you're quick, you're light on your feet. You have leadership skills too, I've seen you do it with the other boys. And I don't see that everyday in this part of town from kids like you."

"You tellin' me the truth?"

"We wouldn't go out of our way just to show up and tell lies to some street urchin, now would we?" the Rodian cackled.

"We can get you out of this place," the Zabrak finished, "and we'll help you make some good use of yourself where your skills are needed. We're trained in that particular field. You just have to do one simple thing."

"What's that?" Cad asked, leaning forward.

"Kill your headmaster."

Cad blinked and then tried to scoff.

"What is this, a joke? You're testing me, aren'tchyu? This is just a test."

"No test, kid. Kill your headmaster and you'll get your ticket to freedom."

The room fell hauntingly silent.

"What did he do to you?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter," said one of the Weequays. "We have to know you can take someone down without revenge or betrayal reasons, not even your own reasons. If you can, we'll be certain we aren't wasting our time with you."

Cad looked down at his hands which were folded in his lap. He never did like his headmaster, but liking or disliking didn't justify killing someone, did it?

But that's the catch, he realized. It doesn't _matter_ if you like him or not—just do it. No hesitation, no emotion, no compassion. That was what would get him out of this living hell.

Could it really be as simple as that?

"When?" he finally asked.

"Right now."

"What 'de hell..."

"There's plenty of other homes we have on our schedule. Don't stall." The Zabrak pulled out a blaster pistol and handed it over to Cad, who took it and began caressing the barrel with his greasy thumbs, old memories coming back. "What are you waiting for?"

Cad slowly rose from his chair. His breaths stopped halfway down his throat. Step by step, the world fading out around him as if in a daze, he approached the door behind which his headmaster of twelve years was waiting to figure out what the hell was going on in there.

The door hissed open.

"What is it...hey, Cad, what are you—?"

_Forgive me, Mama. Please forgive me._

His whole arm felt numb, but his vision was never more clearer as, for one moment, he glared down at the hunched-over aging Human who looked back up at him with a mixture of confusion and shock on his face, eyes fixed on the barrel pointed at his head.

_No hesitation. No emotion. No compassion._

Cad's arm gave a jerk. But he heard not a sound.

_Kill number two._

And the memories he still had of his mother, alive and well and holding him to her chest until his father came home, drifted a bit farther away.


	6. Chapter 6

That fear. That fear of a force much stronger than you, that if you didn't protect yourself and wait for the torture to cease, it would make you all but powerless.

But it was an excitement, too. A moment you're smart enough to not take too much delight in, but you cannot help but remember this...

_Your death is giving me life. And so I won't care what happens to you._

All in all, it was a rush. And it had inflicted young Bane with a bad fever, to the point where he was nauseous with it. Once it had occurred to him that he was sick, he let out a curse under his breath. Of all the times for it to happen, it had to be _now._

In the middle of his train of thought, Bane felt the butt of a rifle smack the back of his shoulder, and he grimaced.

"Look sharp, _youngling_," one of the older Humans said gruffly.

Bane snorted and readjusted his bandanna.

"What, this ain't sharp enough for you?"

"Watch your mouth, kid, and remember who's in charge," the Zabrak warned him from the front, where he piloted the airspeeder. It was early morning on the Nar Shaada system, dawn creeping up the horizon of the rotting urban planet. Bane, who had never been to a system other than Duro or Coruscant, had to put up quite a strong barrier to hide his awe at all the new sights surrounding him.

Of course, the six quote-unquote _professionals _had been here before. To map out their plan. And now their plan was about to be executed. If all went well, within the hour, they would have a stolen jackpot worth fifty-thousand Republic creds from a local Nar Shaada bank.

_My first day on the job, _Bane repeated in his head. First day being hired...

Damn! This was _crazy._ Was it only a week ago he was still in that boys' home?

Hoping the fever would subside, he clutched the blaster rifle in his arms. It was one of the cheaper models, but he was used to cheap. Plus, since he was only an extra gunman this time, he couldn't expect much.

"Whaddaya think, boy?" the Human pressed on. "Think you'll be able to look an innocent woman or child in the eye, and raise that blaster to—"

One of the Weequays was about to shut him up, out of exasperation, but Bane didn't want the help. He fingered the ammo belt that hung over his shoulder as he faced the Human head-on, who had several hours ago let out that eight out of ten of their new recruits had been killed on the first heist.

"So what do you want me to prove?" Bane said angrily, looking his accuser right in the eye. He didn't receive an answer, so he went on. "Well? What do you want to see me do out 'dere? You want a show? I can give you a show. You don't? Then _can it_."

He knew he shouldn't have said that the second it was over. The Rodian chuckled behind him as the designated bank came into view around the corner, as she said,

"You'll sure feel _that _one from the boss if you survive this, Bane. You may have skill, but that doesn't include your big mouth."

Sure. He probably would feel some form of punishment for getting all snappy.

But even as Bane considered that, it didn't phase him one bit. After all, nothing could be worse than what his father had put him through. Somebody on that level of drunkenness, with that level of creativity as to what he could do with objects as simple as a _belt_ or a _meat hook_ or a _can opener_, did things your body never forgot.

And his father was dead...for the most part, anyway. He lived on behind closed red eyes.

Bane gave a shudder as the airspeeder landed. This was it.

Damn, the rush felt so amazing - nearly intoxicating as he jumped out of the airspeeder to join the group.

So amazing he never wanted it to stop. Wanted the _excitement _to always be there, whatever it took to make it that way.

The Zabrak walked alongside him, wielding a pair of blaster pistols.

"All right, this is it. Show us what you can do, little Bane."

_You hold on to it. Cradle it. Take care of it. You'll know when to pull it out and make good use of it._

"Oh, I'll show you..."

* * *

><p>And when it was over, young Cad Bane had become more than a thief—more than the little boy who stole from the marketplace. More than a liar—constantly telling stories to the headmaster to cover up a wrong he had done so another kid was punished instead of him. And more than the boy who shot his father and, in his seven-year old mind, could only arrive to the conclusion that he had <em>liked <em>it.

He was a murderer.

But he was alive—a survivor, with food to eat, a gun to protect himself, and a newly-discovered drug he called a _rush_.

That was all that mattered.

* * *

><p><em>Old Training Grounds<em>

_...  
><em>

The juvenile detention center was divided into what the big scary grown-ups called 'divisons'. The big mean-looking kids called them the 'pens'. The kids with scars on their wrists and arms had their own pen. The kids with special flashing ankle restraints had their own pen. The kids with bodies riddled and stained with gang tattoos had theirs.

And then the kids, like seven-year old Cad, who did not fit anywhere else, had their pen.

_Don't cry,_ he constantly repeated to himself.

It was what Mama had told him over and over on those longest nights. Those were the nights Father was drunk, and Father was mad, and there was nothing but yelling and screaming and hurt and severe pain all night long. She held him close, her back against a door she had locked with Father banging on the other side. Don't cry. You're okay. You're okay. It's just a scratch. I'm never going to let you go, Cad. I promise.

But now Mama was gone.

His mind raced, almost unable to grasp it.

How—how could Mama be _gone_? She _promised_...

Why didn't he do anything when Father was hurting her? He could have stopped him if he tried hard enough. No, he had just watched. And now he would always regret not looking away.

In the 'pen', food was delivered twice a day through a large sealed door at the front. Stale bread, some vegetables, and water. The biggest kids in his pen always got to the food first and took what was freshest or cleanest, or sometimes all of it.

Cad, one day, had had enough of that. All morning, he had made his way ever so slowly towards the door, about an inch every ten minutes, so the big kids wouldn't notice. Then when the food came, Cad had sprung and grabbed what he could. His plan had worked, but the big kids didn't like it.

And so now, he had retreated to what was now his own corner of the 'pen', pacing around and around to distract himself, so he could be doing something with his body. If his father were here, he wouldn't like to see a son's idleness, or Cad's cowering from the bigger kids, not one bit. Father was gone, too.

That was _his _fault. He had taken his blaster and...

"I shot my daddy and I_ liked_ it. I shot my daddy and I _liked_ it," he sang.

It was not long before he had worn a visible circular path in that corner from all the pacing. All the fighting to hold back the tears, the images, and the burning that had begun inside of him that he did not know what to call.

A burning that got hotter and more intense whenever he was near the big kids who had hurt him, or the grown-ups that had brought him here—as he wanted to make _them _burn.

And what was that phrase the big kids were always using on each other? _ "Go to hell, you fuck."_


	7. Chapter 7

"Kill Number One": a male blue-skinned Duros with a renowned career as a manipulator of women and a solicitor of every local cantina, a pastime of beating the shit out of his wife and kid so they would be too scared to run away, and a sense of humor that always stays with you.

"Kill Number Two": a retired Republican soldier-turned bounty hunter-turned headmaster of a boys' home, who didn't mind taking juvenile delinquents under his wing and training them up as long as they followed every one of his rules.

"Kill Number Three": a female Rodian bankteller who hit the security alarm even when warned not to by a certain Zabrak.

"Kill Number Four": Republican guard, stationed outside the same bank, seconds from taking out the getaway airspeeder.

"Kill Number Five": a Twi'lek who couldn't keep his nose clean.

"Kill Number Six": Human, male.

"Kill Number Seven": same Zabrak from before.

Eight...enemy of the Hutts.

Nine...ditto.

Ten...eleven...

Twelve—twenty—and so on.

Cad Bane no longer kept count.

Alone and wandering down a Nal Hutta street, his hand was rested calmly over the blaster at his side. The street reeked of organic waste and nicotine and hyperdrive fuel, but he no longer noticed the smell. Currently one of his eyes was catching a tangeringe orange sign that read "Plone's Apparel Shop".

He was glad to have them off his back.

The six professionals who bailed him out the boys' home—they had told no lies, but neither had they told the truth. Bane's success in helping them execute a bank robbery on Nal Hutta had revealed their true motives behind his rescue. Their leader, the Zabrak, got to make all the rules. Bane was now just an extra gunman behind their plots for money.

Nobody else could use him, much less know of his existence.

Some profession, some career.

"See it as payment for getting you out of the boys' home," they had corrected, the filthy, full-of-it Bantha-shits.

Sure. Hell in a different color with extra ammo was still Hell.

But Bane had decided long ago that he was no longer going to be anyone's victim.

And so, one standard month later, the tall pale-faced Zabrak made the fatal mistake of allowing Bane to pick out his own personal weapon from their oversized collection on Nar Shaada. Looking up at all the different forms of pistol, rifle, artillery, and more, stacked up against the walls of the abadoned warehouse, Cad Bane had felt a desire reawaken in him. It had been born when he stole his first blaster and hid it under his bed as a seven-year old. Almost a decade and a half later, he felt like the galaxy was at his fingertips.

During their second bank robbery, it had been Bane who came up with the idea of distracting security with perfectly-timed bombs thrown into an innocent bystander crowd. If he hadn't been able to rig the bombs so they couldn't be deactivated, the heist would have only been half of its success. As a reward, he had been given permission to carry thermal detonators at his side from then on. But never his own actual _weapon_.

He decided on a pair of double-blasters, telling himself that later when he could, he would customize them on his own. So they could be no one else's.

One of those blasters sent a laser bolt through a Zabrak heart. The other targeted one of the Weequays who walked in just in time to see the event unfold.

_ Boil it down to this, and you'll see that all that matters in life is your credits._

_ No hesitation. No emotion. No compassion._

Goodbye to the people who told him to kill his headmaster. Goodbye to the living hell. Goodbye to any thoughts of a future where Cad Bane could function without the desire for a blaster at his side.

Taking one of their ships as his own for his getaway was easy and done in a cinch. Of course, Bane also remembered to swipe the Zabrak's personal datapad, inside which was a cargo load of data and records on the latest bounties, crime lords, and mercenary hideouts and systems. Once he had hacked past the security, literally pages of names and locations spread out before him. He hadn't been able to hold back a gleeful giggle.

In minutes, it seemed as if a whole new world had opened up to Bane. He knew more about the Hutt crime family, the Bounty Hunter's Guild, and big names like Jango Fett and Durge than he had been able to scrape up in all his previous years.

Still. In the blackness of space, alone in an aircraft he barely knew how to pilot, a chill had run up his spine.

_What are my options?_

Now he was just a fugitive. A runaway from a boys' home, in a stolen ship, with a pair of double-blasters. He did not have many.

He could follow in _their_ footsteps, of course. Steal. Rob banks. Pillage. Like back in the days where his own petty thievery of the local bakeries, butcher shops, and marketplaces was the only thing keeping he and his mother alive.

In that case, he would need a group of his own—a gang of wild, heavily-armed kids just like him. Probably all from boys' homes or the like. School drop-outs. Picked up some tattoos and cigarette addictions from a juvenile detention center.

Bane shuddered at the thought.

_No._

He wanted to work alone.

It was the only way he knew how to work at all.

After all, anyone he had associated with in the past had either suffered for it or betrayed him over whatever trust there had been.

He had one choice left, then. To do whatever the next man up needed to be done that paid well. That kept the credits rolling in.

_I could do that_, he had thought as he read the contents of the datapad again._ I could take on any job they offer. For the right price._

Why not?

And so, swallowing the fear and apprehension that clogged up his throat, he had set the ship's coordinates for Nal Hutta, the capitol of the Hutt empire, with no idea whatsoever what he would be walking into. The only assurance he had was that, on Nal Hutta, a list of bounties on the heads of certain Hutt enemies were all waiting to be picked up by the next gun-for-hire.

It was either that or starve. And he dreaded the thought of going hungry again.

Plus, perhaps this sort of life would make him busy and light on his feet—so much so that the nightmares wouldn't have time to return. He needed that.

One last time, he pleaded for forgiveness from the last remaining memories he had of his mother.


	8. Chapter 8

_Thirty-seven days later_

_...  
><em>

The rush was back.

It had all happened so quickly. But it was over now. He had made his first official _bounty_. He had made his first official _kill_.

_Kill number twenty-five._

Fifteen-thousand credits for killing an enemy of the Hutts on Nal Hutta would seem like small-time crime for any well worn and well experienced mercenary. That was easy to figure out. Thanks to the Zabrak's datapad, Bane had found a Nal Hutta cantina swarming with bounties and hunters—a breeding ground for bloodshed. Think the boys' home a dozen times over. But to young Bane, it was much more than a small-time crime.

When the Hutts landed eyes on a lanky, gaunt, young-adult male Duros, shoulders hunched forward, wearing a bandanna and a dark-green khaki vest—and bearing a recent kill worth fifteen-thousand credits—something had sparked. He had arrested their interest. He was given his reward in full as well as a verbal hint from the translating protocol droid that they might request him to do work for them in the near future.

Many pairs of eyes bore down on him as he walked out of the Hutt palace.

"What's your name, kid?" someone asked. When Bane looked up, he saw a Human in Mandalorian armor, with a dark and weathered face, even though he couldn't be Bane's senior by more than several years.

"Bane. Cad Bane."

"Never heard that name before," said the Mandalorian.

"No. No, you wouldn't have."

The Mandalorian, just by a quick glance, saw something in that pair of furious crimson eyes—the rush. He also couldn't help but notice, underneath the vest and thin shirt, crisscrossing scars that riddled the Duros' shoulders.

"You watch yourself there, _Bane_. Just one kill won't cut it around here."

_How about twenty-five? Or more?_

Little did Cad Bane know that twenty-five was merely the beginning.

"Sir—I ain't even started yet," Bane replied. As he walked away, he heard someone chuckle next to the Mandalorian,

"The way that Duros kid's looking, Jango, you'd think he wants to take the number-one title from you. Just _look_ at that face...!"

The first thing Bane bought with his fifteen-thousand credits was a new ship. Then he had the biggest order of fast food he could dream of, and when alone, scarfed down every single morsel in under five minutes. Soon after that his stomach couldn't handle the barrage and made him throw up all of it—a stomach that wasn't used to the sensastion of being full. Neither was it used to pretty much anything that tasted good.

Now, mere hours later, Cad Bane was a free man for the first time in his life. There was no threat of poverty or Father's drunken rages—no prison wards—no headmaster or credit-thieving bullies—no one ordering his life around. The second he got that first reward, it marked the end of one era and the start of something new.

Realizing that gave him such a rush, it felt like it was intoxicating.

The street reeked of organic waste and nicotine and hyperdrive fuel, but he no longer noticed the smell. Instead, Bane could only smell the freshness of freedom—independence—knowing that he was a survivor.

Even if the nightmares would never go away.

_I'm sorry, Mama. I'm so, so sorry. Hope you'll forgive me._

_ But it's okay. I'm strong now—just like you always wanted me to be._

_ That, and so much more._

But Bane doubted someone such as him would ever be worthy of a thing like forgiveness.

Maybe once he had been, in a half-remembered dream. When he was putting a bandage on his mother's face as she held him close—and at night she sang a sweet, sad lullaby he could still remember. A lullaby that said they would both be safe and sound, and he should hold on even when the music was gone. Maybe then.

But not now. Not anymore.

His eye caught a tangerine orange sign that read "Plone's Apparel Shop". His gaze twitched and he couldn't help but take a closer look. On the store's front hologram screen, a passing image caught his attention.

_Damn. That's a nice hat, _he thought. He had plenty of credits left.

Why not? If he was going to be filling out bounties for criminals like the Hutts, he might as well do it with a look.

Bane approached the shop and the clerk standing nearest to the open doorway.

"Pardon me," said Bane, "how much is that hat?" He pointed.

"Oh, you couldn't come on a better day, pal. Just for today, if you buy more than one item, I take fifty-percent off your first choice. So, are you interested in anything else?"

Bane glanced over the other items displayed on the store's hologram, and he noticed a long, dark, leather trenchcoat, plus a set of holsters to attach to a belt.

"Ring it all up," he said. Once again, he glanced at the hat, and realized he couldn't wait to see how it would look on him—hopefully as good as he was imagining.

"Anything else?" asked the store clerk.

"Yeah." Bane jabbed a bony thumb back at the hat. "How many of those you got in the stock?"


	9. Chapter 9

_"The whiskey on your breath_  
><em>Could make a small boy dizzy;<em>  
><em>But I hung on like death:<em>  
><em>Such waltzing was not easy.<em>

_We romped until the pans_  
><em>Slid from the kitchen shelf;<em>  
><em>My mother's countenance<em>  
><em>Could not unfrown itself.<em>

_The hand that held my wrist_  
><em>Was battered on one knuckle;<em>  
><em>At every step you missed<em>  
><em>My right ear scraped a buckle.<em>

_You beat time on my head_  
><em>With a palm caked hard by dirt,<em>  
><em>Then waltzed me off to bed<em>  
><em>Still clinging to your shirt."<em>

_-"My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke_

* * *

><p>Father, for some reason, had suddenly been elated to a strangely-good mood.<p>

Maybe it was something he smoked.

Laughing and belting out his playlist of drinking songs, he grabbed his seven-year old son by the wrists, one of which was still broken, and hung him up by his arms.

Father had then begun to drag his son's skinny, bloody legs and feet across the floor. All the while, he laughed his heart out and seemed to forget that he was stepping over his dead wife, whose rotting stench was already beginning to fill the house.

"You like to dance, Cad? Wha's 'de _matter_? Why 'de long _face_, you feelin'_ low_? You don't feel right, feel good. 'Oh, it's gonna be a _long_, long night...I kill 'dat bitch, I steppin' on her now' and I feel so _good _about 'dat...!

"Oh, let's have some fun, 'cause you _know _we don't get to do this no more...!"

And once the scabs on Cad's knees and shins had been opened and bled on the mess already on the floor, his father had danced him into his room. He had laughed so hard he could not hear the cries of pain, of fear, and of protest.

Still laughing, his father had then dropped him onto the bed. He had had one last drinking song to finish before 'lights out'.

"It's all just a _dream_, isn't it? This thing we call _love_…'s all jus' smoke and mirrors, _darling_..." he had sang over the cries.

Father had sung all night long. But the sun never rose.

* * *

><p><strong>Way too short a chapter, I know, but I had to write one last snippet that was based off Roethke's wonderful poem. Oh yeah, and the song Cad's father was singing is an actual song from the EU.<br>**

**Next chapter is the last! Unless there is a HIGH demand for more, of course.**


	10. Epilogue

_Epilogue_

"_Cargo of Doom" - alternate version_

* * *

><p>The male Rodian's screams of agony echoed off the walls as the power was activated once again. Bane held up the Jedi Holocron in the palm one hand.<p>

"Simply open this little box of yours, so that I can get the information from this crystal," Bane said slowly. He watched as the Rodian squirmed and thrashed with intense pain. Then he signaled for the battle droid behind him to turn off the power, and the Rodian dropped his head. " And your suffering will come to an end."

The Rodian gagged and coughed up a bit of blood. Bane hesitated and waited for an audible word or two. Then he heard him say, weakly,

"You will never—get me—to unlock th-the H-Holocron..."

Bane narrowed his eyes with nothing short of annoyance. To him, time was being wasted on his part, and nothing more.

"All right, then." He faced the battle droid. "Hit him again, more power."

Then he heard a cry from the Rodian, and turned around again.

"_You_," Master Ropal hissed. "I don't know—what you _want—_from the crystal. B-but it doesn't m-matter. You won't get it. You're a _monster_."

Bane casually leaned back on one leg, crossing his arms.

"Am I?" he asked in a low voice.

"Your kind always die out. You were _born _t-t-to die out. Y-you're nothing but—a worthless, c-coldhearted, _scar-face_. You _scum_."

Bane wiped the Rodian spittle off his face. Something flashed in his crimson eyes that Master Ropal automatically did _not _like.

"You don't like my scars, do you?" asked Bane. And he pulled down a bit on his leather coat and shirt to reveal the scars still on his shoulders. Thanks to his outfit, including his new breathing tubes, the scars could easily be hidden from anyone now. Unless he desired otherwise, of course.

Ropal dared lift his head to look into those eyes again. Those hardened, crimson eyes, in which there was no longer any light.

"Do you wanna know how did I get these scars?"

"I don't need some s-story from the likes of _you_."

A dark, cold sneer began to spread across Bane's face, as he reached down and yanked off the belt from across his waist, looping the end around his hand.

"I'm not gonna tell ya. I'm gonna _show _ya," he said.

And the heavy buckle of his belt began to drag against the floor—a sound Cad Bane was all-too familiar with, but more often than not, pretended to forget.

* * *

><p><strong>Well, that is all. I hope you enjoyed this story. Please leave a review before you check out!<strong>


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